Think of the guy who made the connection that him winning at poker had something to do with him wearing his lucky shirt, when the connection that he should have made was that people stopped talking to him when he was still wearing his lucky shirt on day 6 of the tournament…
The sense that’s different for everybody but that if it was asked to describe itself would say: “I don’t know much about this”, that sense, that feeling of confusion and that sort of nebulous state of mind, that which people call a lack of clarity, which through concentration and focus on one thing at a time leads to a sense of clarity beginning to emerge in the form of a good feeling or two or three small take-aways about a specific situation -
that’s called learning, and it leads to you being able to spend more money on things and activities that you love, which I call freedom. To put it simply:
Working on your game in a way that's hard for you has something to do with you improving your bottom line!
Feeling good and being focused at the tables is connected to certain outcomes, too… like more and more freedom that you can see in the choices that you feel comfortable making and a sort of abundance both in opportunity and in choice, or to put it simply:
You’ll be able to do more and to buy more when you see yourself playing higher stakes as you feel good and focused, even immersed until a couple of hands, or a couple of sessions later you feel proud of yourself for clicking call against a good player as you see yourself scoop that large pot (which is when I hear a sound in my head: “
Ka-ching!”). Feeling good about knowing with confidence that you just made a good decision (“
Ka-ching!”) is a habit that turns into golden opportunities… especially after working on your game with concentration and determination, which means that you see the pot being shipped your way in close situations more often (“
Ka-ching!”) in the next hour of play, on the next day of play or in a session a week later. That feeling of being focused, when you
just see one thing at a time, which many people only do when they work thoroughly and with determination, being confident about a decision that you made with clarity on the situation, feeling pressure in a good way, that’s what leads to you experiencing good things those times that you’re open for the opportunity… so be open for it! Easier said than done, right?
What sorts of unconscious connections have you made when it comes to poker that you’ve been reinforcing unconsciously ever since? If you stop and think about it, it might explain parts of your experience that you’ve been trying to explain for years: For example, have you decided that feeling bad about losing a big pot leads to you often winning a big pot just a couple of hands later which has lead to you
still feeling bad about losing big pots (after all those years… and you’ve often thought: “
Why does it still bother me?”) ? Have you decided that seeing more cards more often means that you’re making more money and has that made you
make hundreds, even thousands of terrible river calls? There are many connections that you can make in poker that just lead to your play deteriorating… have you won especially many hands with the ace of hearts so that you feel good now every time you see it? And yes, I am saying:
Get rid of your lucky shirt, or at least wash it for crying out loud!
If you’d update your mental structure, you’d end up having a much better time and the real connections would become clearer and clearer:
Do you play with more confidence when you’ve learned more about a situation?
Is there the experience of a greater sense of clarity the times that you notice that you’re focused instead of falling back into that old pattern of not being very focused? You certainly know what that leads to… and
can you make a more informed decision right after you let go of past hands?
Beginning to make those connections that serve you, that get you closer to your goals, while making sure to disregard noise and those random patterns that you know have nothing to do with your success at the tables, with you remembering the times that you were able to make great decisions... that's also connected to very specific things, good things, even great things:
You could prepare well so that you play with confidence. You could focus, so that your decisions are informed. You could take breaks, so that you experience the third hour of play with that same open mindedness and sense of being fresh and immersed as you often do right at the start of the session.
You could do so many things... why don't you
start by making just one thing that you know is good for you a habit, starting today?
Imagine who you would become if you made all the right connections so that you could feel good about the right things!
Stay humble, friend, and keep doing what you're doing. Or make a change now.